Torchwood to return for new series!

It has been confirmed that Torchwood is coming back for a new series. Both John Borrowman and Eve Myles were signed on. They are apparently still going through with the worldwide scenario with Torchwood set to make appearances in the USA and cities worldwide.

I have very mixed feelings about new Torchwood.Is it possible to be both excited and full of dread at the same time???

I generally liked COE, I really did... but on reflection, and nearly a year on, it just wasn't Torchwood. A great piece of telly yes.... but good Torchwood, no?

To explain this, I'm going to quote a friend of mine, because as a fanfic writer, she has a way of explaining things in writing far better than me.

.....

Torchwood was always about the little guy, the personal stories. Doctor Who was what I watched for large, important stories, Doctor Who was what I watched when I wanted to see a heroic figure save the world. I love Doctor Who as a result of that, but I never developed the same kinds of emotional attachments as I did to Torchwood. Torchwood was always about the smaller stories, the non-universe-threatening attacks; whilst in Doomsday I was encouraged to mourn the separation of the Doctor and Rose, Cyberwoman reminded me of all the other little people whom Doctor Who had failed to touch upon, all those other victims who lost so much more then either the Doctor or Rose did on that fateful day in Canary Wharf. Whilst many episodes of Doctor Who focused on the defeat of the threats, even when the threats in Torchwood did seem world-threatening, the focus remained on the little people at the centre, Sleeper being an excellent example of this.

.....

Regarding COE:

As good a piece of television it may have been, and as I am biased in that I’m not going to even try and make a judgement, I did not think it was a good piece of Torchwood. It was too big, too mainstream, too concerned with saving the world. The characters who had kept me coming back for more were relegated to the background, two of them dead and the others put in basically supporting roles. When it came to the actual story, the main action took place beyond the Torchwood team, with the characters I had invested so much time in basically having no real impact on the story at all. What had happened to that campy, flawed little show that had garnered such a large and dedicated following? What had happened to the concern for the little guy? When I think Torchwood, I think the individual stories, and Children of Earth was just too big – that concern for the civilian, for the people in the middle, and that message that any little victory is as big as the Doctor saving the world, it had all gone. One of the most appealing aspects of Torchwood, in my eyes, the thing that had made it actually occupy a deeper place in my heart than Doctor Who ever could, had been taken away in favour of spectacle.

And, with the announcement of an “international” Series 4, this only seems set to continue.

.....

Feel free to disagree with us, but for many Torchwood fans , me included, COE broke us, destroyed EVERYTHING we knew and loved and many have not recovered from that. (I have... mostly)

Alot of us have, and will watch series 4 and will most likely love it and will come to enjoy the changes... but the fandom has lost A LOT of people in the aftermath of COE... and not just because of the whole Ianto thing, many because of the big reason written above.Many fans are wary of trusting RTD ever again, and not wanting to watch a new series and get emotionally attached to new characters that will just die to advance the plot. Because obviously, he thinks the only way to demostrate the drama and danger of Torchwood is to kill off characters (there are much better and even more dramatic and heartbreaking ways of demostrating this without resorting to killing characters left and right)COE was great, but it wasn't Torchwood.

Many feel like RTD is trying to make Torchwood into Doctor Who because he no longer has that to play with anymore.

Plus lots of us are fearful of it becoming the "Jack and Gwen Show"

How are they going to explain away Jack's return from angsting through space? ("Oh remember that time Jack killed his own grandson and was so stupid as to not take some ruddy gas masks into a room with hostile alien in a tank") What's happened to Rhys and Duncan their baby? Does Gwen just leave them? Do they die? What about the Rift?? Or are they just going to forget all about it? Just like they did with Owen and Tosh and Gray at the beginning of COE.

I will watch it and give it a go and hope for the best, because I generally really love Torchwood and the two surviving characters members, Jack and Gwen (sadly not as much as 2 of the recently deceased team members, ie: Tosh and Ianto)I only hope RTD can prove all his doubters in this fandom wrong and give us something that feels much more like Torchwood again.

CoE was great television, and I think it was great sci-fi. Not sure one way or the other whether it was "great Torchwood", because Torchwood hasn't really done a great job of defining itself so far.

And part of the problem of following up with another series is how do you make sure it too is good when Torchwood has been so inconsistent?

I guess I still don't understand the complaints regarding character deaths on the show - much less getting into specific feelings toward certain characters. We were basically told from episode 1 of series 1 that these people don't last long in this job. They have a morgue in The Hub and all. And RTD has made good on this aspect of the show.

As to whether the show will lose a lot of fans? That remains to be seen. It's generally not a good idea to attempt to speak for anybody other than yourself when it comes to fandom, regardless of how many people you talk to directly. There are always many more people out there, many of whom may not agree with you.

I was at San Diego Comic-Con last year for the Torchwood panel, and I was sitting in the row in front of one group of big Ianto fans who made a spectacle of themselves by standing up upon RTD's entry and yelling "Bring back Ianto!". In the end, RTD got more cheers and support for what he said and his explanations than what those women got for their outburst.

I guess it's a different side of the fandom that I'm mostly part of. ie: were mostly female (through there are a few men in this part of fandom), communicate mostly through livejournal, we're the fanfiction writing/reading kind, mostly aged between 15-30 (through there's quite a few older than that) that enjoy character driven dramas more than sci fi, and alot of us are shippers, etc etc.

For us, Torchwood was about the characters, not the sci fi, because the sci fi in Torchwood was never the best part of it. It was flawed, it was campy, it was FULL of plotholes, but we loved it anyway because of the characters.

We understood that most people in Torchwood die young, we saw that with Suzie, but because of the length of time in between series 1 and 2 (It was a whole year) this gave lots of fans (in this side of fandom) a long time to connect with the characters, and in sometimes emotional ways.

Then we got the end of series 2 with Owen and Tosh, now I wasn't hugely into this side of fandom when this happened, but a similar fallout happened in the fandom when this happened (no where as large as the post COE fallout) but again, as the fans mourned Owen and Tosh, we took comfort in the fact that at least Gwen and Ianto were still alive, at least the HUB was still around, Torchwood was still Torchwood and we moved on.

"The end is where we start from"

Now, the wait between series 2 and series 3 was again, very very long. 1 year and a half. Similar thing happened as it did inbetween series 1 and 2. The fandom grabbed onto the 3 remaining characters, hoping that the loss of Tosh and Owen and the pain of it wouldn't happen again.

Then, there were the shippers.

In various thing (articles, interviews, conventions) we were promised various things regarding the Jack and Ianto relationship. Lots of very misleading things now in retrospect. So due the length of time we had to wait for COE, and the fact that it was so short (only 5 episodes), it was Torchwood only in name, and we were lied too about lots of things, and it destoryed everything (and nearly everyone) that the fandom loved, that was the reason of the massive fallout.

Also, the way it ended was so so grim. At least at the end of series 2 there was still hope. ie: The end is where we start from. But the end of COE saw the well loved Jack become sooo dark and so angst filled that there was absolutely no hope at all in the ending, expect maybe Gwen's baby... but even then.

And again, like after series 2, the fandom has (mostly, there are still a bunch of people still banging on) moved on. But lots of people are fed up with the whole growing attached to characters (because they are often written so well by RTD and the others, and performed so well by the actors) that we know it will only happen again and again because that's RTD's mentality.

Many many fic writers have explored other ways of showing the danger and horror of working in Torchwood without killing the characters. For example, if you've seen the latest Doctor Who episode, that's a prime example what can be done, and of what lots of COE fix it fics are like.

So I guess, does that go anywhere to explain the complaints regarding character deaths??

It's a funny old fandom this one.

As for the show losing fans. I do speak to alot of the fan community, both in real life and on Livejournal, and I have noticed lots of people saying they won't watch series 4, mainly because of the reason I wrote above. That of course isn't saying that that's truth of most of the fandom, but just an observation I have come to through my own experience of being a Torchwood fan through the post COE fandom depression.

As for the girls at Comic Con, every fandom has their crazy fans, the ones that take it to the extreme and give the rest of us sane ones a bad name. I tend to avoid them, because honestly... they really make all of us look crazy.

I personally know quite a few girls that are part of the SaveIantoJones.com campaign and let me tell you, they are in no means crazy and mean spirited towards the production team, but are very civil and senstive in their protests and are nothing but very kind, open and welcoming human beings.Not that I agree with what they are doing (I think it's pointless, because it's not going to happen, me and lots of the fandom and quite happy to live in fanfiction and denial), but they are doing in a way that doesn't hurt anyone... let me tell you.